Wednesday 15 June 2011

Lavender Chocolate Cake and the Imagination Gym

CAKE: 

125g of softened butter

1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

1 1/4 cups of Caster Sugar

2 Eggs

1 1/3 cups of S.R. Flour

1/2 cup of Cocoa Powder

2/3 cup of Water

1 tablespoon of Lavender Syrup


(Mix and bake at 180 degrees celcius for 1 hour or still cooked through)



ICING:

1 cup of Icing Sugar (+30g of butter)


90g of Dark Chocolate

(Mix with 2 tablespoons of Hot Water to make Icing) 






Monday 13 June 2011

Glamour Markets and Alexanders Macaroons



 Recently I have discovered that Perth is not as market dry as I once thought and on one of these discoveries I found the Clontarf Saturday Markets. Now when I think 'markets' I think of one word......'homemade'. Trinkets, toys and Riff-Raf.
These markets do not fall under this category.
They are really mostly larger shops, bakers, farms all pitching a tent on a beautiful space of land (and history) to sell you their most popular produce.
It is actually pretty small as well.
however it is still worth the trip down there for breakfast one Saturday morning.


This Saturday just pasted, my husband and I headed down for some breakfast and a few vege's. the breakfast and coffee vans were in full swing by eight thirty and we feasted on crepes and bacon/egg rolls, then promising each other to return for a bratwurst with sauerkraut sometime soon.


To be honest there is more than just a good breakfast that draws my to these markets now and this time we invited my mother to come down and join us for some of Alexanders Macaroons!

I have long been put off the idea of macaroons and for major reason.

They are brightly coloured.

Yep, thats it! thats my enitre reason. To me, brightly coloured remindes me of iceing. You know that icing they put on childrens cakes and cupcakes too? I have never liked the stuff and to look at these pink and purple little treats look up at me with suck an intense rainbow effect, I never had a problem walking on past....never.....until I worked up the guts to try Alexander's Macaroons.


As a woman, I would first like to apologize to my own kind for what I am about to say, I relaize the trouble this may cause. But......

"I was wrong"


Waaaaay wrong. They are not too sweet and they are light and fluffy and chewy and incredibly delectible! I also know know that if you eat these things, you are likely to melt into a rather large wet patch on the grass beneath you. They even have one that tasted just like a lemon Tart! They are devine! This of course leads me to the next problem....learning o make them!

However, Ill leave tht for another blog entry.



Thursday 9 June 2011

Babies, Bumps, Breasts and Baguettes

Next year I will celebrate(?) being out in the ‘real world’ for ten years. That is, it will be the tenth year anniversary since graduating high school. There will be talk of re-unions and all that comes along with, the memories good and bad, the still tense relationships and then the ones you can’t wait to see again, all the nerves, all the excitement. This past week, we embarked on a smaller version of this and what a better way to meet than over food? In fact, what a better excuse to cook and blog than a mini high school reunion? I put it out and all were up for the challenge (I say this because, well, the dishes I cooked were not tried and true, but new and ready to be experimented on, and they, unwittingly, agreed to be my guinea-pigs).



These re-union thingy’s are interesting events. You meet together for coffee individually over the years, but all together brings a completely different air of nostalgia, not to mention, it is blatantly obvious that we have completely moved out of one season in our lives and onto and well into the next. At school, as of course it would be, it was all ‘hot boys’ and how much we, like, TOTALLY hated our cruel and oppressive parents (okay so some of our parents actually were cruel and oppressive, not he point), we talked about what we were going to do when we broke free of the prison sentence we were serving at Como Secondary College, (I think at some stage I even declared I would fly to Hollywood and make it big….. wow! That so DIDN’T happen, or at least not quite like that anyway). We talked about moving out and getting real jobs (maccy-D’s not included) and we even fought like hormonal teenage girls should.
 Now it is completely different.
We talked about Husbands and FiancĂ©’s and about our parents as if they now have become our children. We talk about the different careers we are moving out of/into. We talk about that old prison sentence with nostalgia, and the dreams that never happened. Of how our plans didn’t work out, but we were excited about the ones we were now in and we laughed at each other being hormonal pregnant women with baby-brains. All in all, it is always interesting to sit and see where we are all at after nine years. Most of all we talked about babies, the ones in us, out of us and the ones yet to come and of course...........the process of having them...EEK!



We are married, we are divorced, we are finding love all over again, we are engaged, we are newly weds. We are pregnant, we are trying, we are breast feeding, we are pregnant again, we are D.I.N.K.’s, we are stay at home mums, we are working mums, we are changing careers, we are training. We are buying houses, saving deposits, moving inter-state, and just traveling. We are even Buddhist’s, Christians, Muslims and even in-between or un-decided. But we are laughing, happy and glowing, even if just for the night.


I hate to sound corny…..actually, no, no I don’t hate to sound corny, jut for a moment I’d like to sound corny. It was, in every way, beautiful and happy and perfect ..... and the food wasn’t too bad either :)


(for the recipes to these dishes please check click THIS)






As for the menu?
Chermoula Prawns, a warm Olive mix over Goats cheese for starters. Oregano Chicken and Potato bake, a good wintery dish, and to play it safe the Roasted Plums with Chocolate French Toast.

Thursday 2 June 2011

Tasmania

So, while my husband has been away working for the last two weeks, I have been left without my camera. Also because there is only one of me left in the house, my desire to cook has slightly lifted. Momentarily I promise, but none the less I have been living off bachelorette food (slightly more fancy than bachelor food, but still lazy attempts at meal making. For example; bachelor meal: ‘Eggy- in-a-basket’ vs. bachelorette meal: ‘French toast with a sprinkle of nutmeg’, still lazy). All in all there is just nothing really to report on the western front.
Therefore I will skip back a few weeks, gosh, months even, (already?!) and tell you about that little Island that fell off the bottom of Australia. That little crumb of land that is so many times left off maps and logos. That little mouse of a state that looks up quietly whilst all the other states clamber over each other for attention.  Tasmania. That is where a piece of my heart will always stay.
Being in Tasmania for a month really set apart of me ablaze, like for a moment, everything was perfect.  It was like being in a fairytale. Being surrounded by hills and mountains again, I can’t explain what I did to me. I almost cried with joy when I hopped off the plane in Launceston.  I was home again. Of course I was on holiday and everything is wistful and dreamy when you are holiday, but in ‘Tassy’, it was more-so.
Oh so much more more-so.
It was while I was in Tasmania that really I understood how much I enjoyed cooking and that I really decided to start this blog. I suppose it was a place filled with inspiration. Everything made you want to cook. but what was it that really sealed the deal you may ask? That really pushed me that little step over the edge? May be it was the long walks through the Lachlan hills, picking blackberries and shoving them into my mouth like a small child would, fingers out, lips clambering over the palm. Perhaps the Salamanca Markets and the crisp juicy apples almost sour with freshness. Or the fact you buy fresh fruit and veg from people's front yards. Was it the fact that berries and apple trees alike grew like weeds on the road side? Or the quaint little cafĂ©’s that knew how to serve a strong pot of tea along side the fresh flavors of local farms? Or perhaps it was the chill of the mountain winds that could freeze you too the bone, but made you appreciate a steaming hot meal when came back home. lavender fields that sold friands, cakes an tea all laced with that distinct purple scent. Wineries in every second back yard or stone cottages littering the countryside or even just plain nostalgia. It could be any of these things.
Actually I think it was ALL these things, but mostly, I think it was the air. Yes, the air in Tasmania made me do it, it just affected my head.
Enjoy;